Rebel
by Koelker12
Summary: The compliment to my other story, Stormtrooper. A short story about a squad of Alliance soldiers fighting to survive in the deserts of Tatooine. Low ammo, no contact, the enemy creeps closer everyday...Civil war era, one-shot, R&R is appreciated.


**Rebel**

by Jinchu

* * *

The suns were high overhead when I was awoken by my fellow soldier, Gear. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and he made a soft hushing sound with a finger to his lips. I blinked the dazzling sunlight away and quietly searched for my helmet. Then, twisting my body around on the rocky slope below me, I peered over the top edge of our trench.

Near the bottom of our hill, among the boulders and desert shrubs, were several visible beings. Though their intentions may have been to remain unseen, their white glistening armor was unmistakable. I counted two orange shoulder plates visible from behind two separate boulders, and the nose of a rifle sniffing around a bush. I was sure there was going to be many, many more.

I slid back into the trench and looked at the rest of the group. With the exception of Gear and Trigger, everyone appeared to have gotten their shift of sleep. I grabbed my rifle and started fiddling around with it, making sure it was in top condition. It was going to see action real soon.

The hill we had dug in on was tall and shaped like a cone with its upper half shaved off. From a distance it could be mistaken for an odd lonely mesa, and could be picked out from miles around. On its highest point, where it flattened out a bit, we had found our trench. It was a full circle, tracing the outer edge of the flat peak. If someone were to jump over the trench's edge on the far side, they would find a sharp drop. The slope went anywhere from a fifty to thirty degree angle, and could prove quite dangerous if you didn't watch your step.

It was probably because of this steep incline and high view point that we had been able to hold the position for more than six days, each of which we were besieged again and again by Imperial forces. Luckily for us, these attacks consisted of only infantry. Had the imperials been able to get their hands on something bigger, they would most certainly have been able to wipe out a mere twelve Rebel soldiers abandoned on a desolate hill among the wastelands of Tatooine.

"God damn it!" breathed Brute, whose nickname came from his prevalent qualities. "We should have been extracted by now! We made the damn call five days ago!"

"Maybe the signal was intercepted?" put in Trigger. "Imperials are pretty good about setting up jammer systems".

Off to my right, the Captain came creeping towards us from beyond the curve of the trench. "Alright guys," he said, "I got two crawling in from the north...how many you got on this side?"

"Three sir" I said.

"Just scouts then..." Hoover decided.

"That's what I'm thinking" Captain agreed, "Dagger? How many shots you got left in your rifle?"

"Twelve headshots" Dagger answered with a grin.

"Don't get cocky" Gear ordered.

"No" Captain argued. "We need all the confidence we can get. Those scouts are just here to check out what's up. There'll be a mess of stormtroopers here in an hour or so I'll bet'ya".

"Should we cap'em then?" Brute asked anxiously.

Captain stopped and peered over the lip of the trench. He crawled back after a moment. "No. We'll save our ammo".

"If Command doesn't send in a drop ship to get us out by the end of the day, we're fucked" Hoover commented.

"Where's Wompy at?" Captain asked, "We need an ammo count".

Wompy, short for Womprat, joined the group from the other side of the trench.

"It isn't looking good Captain, we won't be able to last any more attacks".

"I don't think the Imperials are giving us an option".

Our mission could have been called a complete failure. We were sent to Tatooine six days ago, a full platoon of us led by Captain, who was actually a lieutenant. Our job was to serve as protection at a meeting with a highly successful smuggler, whom the Alliance hoped to add to their supporters. The meeting was held at a remote moisture farm, supposedly a secure location. The meeting began and the smuggler immediately presented an object to our diplomat. It was a map of some sort, and he intended to use it as leverage for something. However not long after the meeting began, we were ambushed by Imperials. The smuggler and Alliance diplomat were killed almost instantly, and by the time we were able to escape the attack we had lost more than two thirds of our platoon in combat. We were chased across the desert till sunset, when we finally dug in on this hill and suppressed the enemy. Captain then revealed to us that he had snatched the map, however he kept it secured in his pocket, refusing to reveal what it was.

We didn't question him.

I took another look at the hill's base, before calling back, "Gear. Trigger. Go get some sleep. I'll watch for you".

The next hour was quiet. Yet the sense of a coming storm was so powerful it was almost suffocating. The suns relentlessly beat down on our heads. At the hour's end I paused from my watch and glanced toward the other end of the circle-trench. I counted six heads keeping watch, the rest were taking their shift of rest. I swung back around to continue my vigil and discovered a strange object gliding downward from the sky. My body tensed as I realized what it was.

"Imperial drop ship! West!"

"Three from the East!" another soldier added.

"Another from the South!"

"I've got five from the North!"

The shouting woke the rest of the squad, and in seconds the whole group was ready to defend themselves. The drop ships lowered altitude for their approach, snaking in and out between the tops of the hills. Luckily for us the drop ships appeared to be simple cargo-transports from a local town that had presumably been confiscated by the Imperials for military use. They were unarmed; however the amount of soldiers each could hold was tremendous, possibly up to thirty per ship.

Things were about to get intense.

We had five men facing North, two facing South and West, and three facing East. The drop ships came within a quarter mile of our trench before touching down on the sea of sand. It was eerily quiet as we watched the rows of white soldiers assemble into near perfect formations. The squad captains took the point of their formations and began to lead the advance with an air of confidence.

"Gentlemen," Captain shouted, "prepare to defend yourselves! Don't fire till you have a shot!"

I looked to my right at Gear, who gave me a reassuring nod in return. I sent a nervous smile back, and then turned towards the west once more.

The stormtroopers had drawn nearer, a white death creeping over the sand. Moments later they broke apart and spread themselves among the boulders and desert shrub.

Suddenly the silence shattered like glass as an explosion of sound erupted to my right. At the same time the stormtroopers ahead of me burst out and charged the hill, attempting to swarm us. I jammed the trigger on my rifle, waving the barrel side to side in a fanning pattern. Normally it would have been a waste of ammo, but the enemy was so crowded together I managed to hit at least ten with two sweeps.

Gear took a more precise approach and fired well aimed, single shots, targeting those still bunkered down behind cover. One after another the Imperials would jump out from their cover and charge up the slope firing madly, only to be sent rolling back down to whence they came.

A scream let out to our right, and I glanced over to see one of our guys had been hit. I turned back trying to remain focused. Down the slope a ways and to the left slightly, a stormtrooper had swung his arm back, ready to hurl a concussion grenade. I hit his arm in mid throw, and the grenade drop to the ground and rolled backwards. Moments later it exploded, taking two guys with it.

Suddenly my rifle quit firing, and I realized I needed another clip. I grasped my belt only to find I didn't have anymore.

"Gear! Are we out of clips _already_?!"

Without turning his head he replied, "Go grab some from the stock!" He then jerked his head to my left.

I rolled back away from the lip of the trench and started crawling towards the ammo stock. A few bolts flew over my head, and realizing that they had come at such an odd angle, I spun around and landed on my back, facing the sky as a stormtrooper aimed down at me. I blasted him square in the chest and he came toppling over into the trench on top of my legs. I kicked him off and turned to find the ammo stock. The remaining clips were bundled with a strap. I fumbled for the knife hidden in my boot and extracted it from its sheath. A grenade went off somewhere along the side of the hill, and in my hurry I dropped the knife into the sand. I dug for it, just as a desperate battle cry surged through my head.

I looked up, and ahead of me on the southern front, Wompy and Trigger were frantically firing in every direction, desperately trying to fight off the horde. I slit the strap and finally grabbed the ammo, then I scrambled back to Gear and tossed him a clip, and returned to the horde of our own.

A target or two later I set my eyes on something strange. Behind the main squad, nestled behind the safety of a ridge, there was a small white lump with a black cylinder on top of it. Before I realized what it was, a black projectile with a curling tail of smoke came spiraling in our direction.

"RPG! Take cover!"

The missile collided with the forward wall of our trench, hurtling Gear to the right and pinning me against the rear wall of the dugout. It suddenly seemed like there was a battle of my own taking place inside my brain, and I had lost sense of all sound except for a high pitched drone. When my vision cleared I realized I was sitting under a waist-deep pile of rock and earth. I yanked my arms out from under the sand and shook off my rifle moments before a stormtrooper came rushing in through the new hole in our defense. I laid two shots into his stomach, then continued struggling to get myself out of the rubble when another two troopers came charging at me.

I shot one in the leg, but the remaining enemy ran up and beat my helmet with the butt of his rifle. He was about to swing it back in my direction when all of a sudden a figure came flying in from my right and tackled the man. A hand grabbed me from under the arm and hoisted me from the debris. I looked up to see Captain glaring down at me.

"This ain't no place to sit around, come on!"

I tossed down my rifle, realizing it was empty again, and scooped up both of the rifles from the opponents I had just killed. Gripping each in one hand, I raced after Captain towards to the north end of the trench.

"RPG!"

I swung right and saw that last of Hoover, and two other fellow soldiers we called Buckshot and Kid. The rocket devastated the eastern edge of the dugout, burying all three of them in its wake.

"We need to circle up" Captain thought aloud. "Wompy, Trigger, Get over here!"

The two came racing around the corner from the direction I had come with Gear close in tow.

"Gear, Wompy, cover our back from anyone attacking from the East! But stay close. Trigger, watch the west on our left! You," he pointed at me, "help us with the front."

I fell in line next to Dagger, who had long ago ditched the empty sniper rifle and had switched over to an E-11 he had salvaged.

The sight down the hill disheartened me to say the least. There had to be at least a hundred stormtroopers storming up the hill. I hoisted both of my weapons onto the trench's lip and began blasting away.

It wasn't long before the first person ran out of ammo and realized the stock had run dry. He drew a sidearm and desperately resumed fire.

Not long after, a red hot laser sunk into Dagger's shoulder, forcing him backwards into a crumpled heap. I was about to check to see if he was still alive when an angry bellow sounded in my ear. I spun back to see a stormtrooper leap over me and into the trench. The madman blasted another one of our guys to my right before turning his gun on me. I lashed out with my foot and caught him in the knee, causing it to buckle. He crashed to the ground, and before he could recover I was on top of him, smashing my rifles into his helmet visor.

Again there was more shouting and I spun to find that the shootout had turned into an all out melee. Half a dozen stormtroopers were in the pit, frantically trying to subdue their rebel targets. Brute was gunned down in an act of overkill, with at least twenty rounds put in his body before the trooper finally stopped. Wompy was swinging his empty rifle madly at two troopers, until a third came up behind him and put a round into his collar. Brady, another of our guys fired upward into a soldier who tried to leap over him and into the trench. Wompy's killers rushed up to finish him off and I raised my rifles in defiance, only to find they were empty. I threw both of them in a futile effort to distract them, but another trooper slid into the pit and began beating Brady mercilessly with his gun.

With a strike of terror I realized that only Gear, Trigger, Captain, and myself were still fighting.

"Move!" Captain commanded. "Out of the trench! GO!"

I scooped up another abandoned Imperial rifle and scrambled up the rear wall of the trench. Gear and Trigger jumped up and ran after me, followed by Captain who retreated backwards slowly with his rifle blasting away on full auto. It finally ran dry and he threw it back at a stormtrooper trying to climb the ledge before he ran over to join us on the hills origin, the trench circling us like Hell's fiery moat.

Things were about as grim as they could get. We crouched together in a group laying down what little fire we had left as the stormtroopers continued to charge up the hill, pour into the trench, and slowly climb up onto the flat top of our fortress. A grenade rolled between my feet and I managed to kick it back just in time as it blew off another face of the mountain.

Then, as if someone had simply flicked a switch in some twisted control room, the fighting stopped.

"Surrender now rebel scum!" an anonymous voice suggested, hidden from sight in the bottom of the trench.

"You may have finally stopped a few ragtag rebels on this desolate hill," Captain responded, "but no matter how long it takes, one day the Empire will fall on itself and liberty will be restored!"

The stormtroopers' only answer was to scale the trench in unison and form a circle around us, their guns poised and loaded. One stormtrooper with a navy blue shoulder patch took an extra step forward.

"I won't ask again rebel…"

He was cut off by the _RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT_ of a heavy caliber assault weapon. All four of us hit the ground instinctively as the stormtroopers around us were literally torn apart by the velocity and power of the rounds. The blue stormtrooper was severed nearly in half and hurtled off the side of the mountain like a doll. A mighty gust of air nearly knocked us back over when we finally tried to stand, and we all looked up to see an old LAAT/i gunship from the Old Republic blasting off into the distance, getting ready to circle back for another run. A few remaining stormtroopers began firing at us from below the trench line, and we returned fire with a new enthusiasm.

The assault vessel maneuvered above us, allowing its multiple gunners to rotate in their bubble turrets and get a downward angle on the enemies still in the trenches. Resistance from the trench quieted down after a minute or so, and the LAAT/i lowered itself to within a few feet of the earth. I continued firing suppressive shots until my rifle dried out, then jumped backwards onto the floor of the gunship. Once everyone was aboard, the ship rose a meter or so and blasted forward across the sandy landscape.

I laid out on my back, feet hanging outside the open side doors, and let out a sigh of relief. Captain stood, removed his helmet, grasped a handle hanging from ceiling, and stared sorrowfully in the direction of the mountain.

I really wished it could have all just ended there, and we had made it out with the few of us we had left.

After several minutes of thankful silence, Captain broke from his trance and approached the pilot of the gunship. He pulled out the data card containing the map from his pocket.

"We need to get this to Mon Mothma as quickly as possible".

The pilot glanced at the card and nodded. "As soon as we reach the main ship and get into orbit we'll head straight for Command".

Captain turned back toward us and found us staring curiously at the device. He read our minds and considered for only a moment before he flicked a tab on its side.

The card projected a small hologram showing a basic interpretation of the galaxy. A small dot marked a location in the Outer Rim, with a set of coordinates next to it. Below the coordinates read two words, "Katana Fleet"

"The Katana Fleet?" I asked in amazment. "That huge Old Republic trophy fleet that went missing?"

"That's the one. If it's really out there, it's exactly what the Alliance needs. _Two_ _hundred_ Dreadnaught Cruisers!"

"Maybe this mission wasn't a failure after all" Trigger added with a hint of enthusiasm.

"Maybe it _wasn't_…" Captain reflected.

"We've got two bogies approaching fast!" the pilot suddenly interrupted. "Coming from our destination!"

We all forfeited our attention to the front, where two white objects were approaching us fast.

"Two LAAT/i's! But they aren't ours"

"Imperials!" I gasped.

"Looks like we weren't the only ones to finally get their air support today" Gear thought grimly.

"They're gonna pass on either side! We can't close the hatch doors at this speed!"

"Get down!" I yelled.

We all hit the floor. The two gunships, with Imperial logos painted in red on their hulls, started firing preemptive shots in anticipation. When they finally met us, everything happened so fast it took those of us left a few seconds to realize what had happened.

There had been a loud scream from the engines as the ships passed, accompanied by a violent shuddering and the sound of dozens of rounds penetrating the hull. A cry of pain seemed to fall into the mix as well.

I scanned the deck to find Gear by my side, and the Captain laying limp with one arm curled around a bar on the back of the pilot's seat. Trigger was nowhere to be found.

In the cockpit, the pilot was desperately trying to stabilize the damages, cursing at the multiple sirens and warning alarms arguing with him. He slammed his fist into the panel in frustration. "I have to take her down!"

I looked back at the Captain. His head was gently bobbing against his sternum. I began crawling toward him when the data card suddenly caught my eye from the corner of the ship. I reached out for it, missing it several times from dizziness and the ship's constant shuddering. I finally grasped it into an iron-grip, then grabbed the Captain by his arm and tugged.

"Captain! Are you okay? Do you…"

I took my hand back to find it covered with foreign blood. He was gone.

I rolled back over and looked at Gear. He looked back at me, panting, breathing hard with either pain or exhaustion; probably both. Beyond the doors of the ship, the horizon was slanted at an odd angle. We must have been descending sharply.

"Hold on!" the pilot yelled.

There was a violent bump, a wave of sand flooded in through the doors, followed by a feeling close to having your stomach shoved up into your throat. A second impact stopped the ship for the good. My head collided with the back of the cockpit, my helmet absorbing most of the impact. I forced my eyes open against their will, and reached out with my broken arms, fumbling for the edge of the doorway. After a few moments I found it and stumbled into the burning hot sand. It was hot enough to make me groan in pain.

Then everything seemed to go numb. I suppose my body had just decided that enough was enough. I closed my eyes. The twin suns reflecting off the sand were too much to bear. A minute later, when I managed to open them again for a few precious seconds, I realized that Gear had crawled next to me, and was lying face up in the sand. He held a rifle over his chest. I could still feel the data card, locked into my left hand.

It was then that I could hear the steady humming of a vehicle. I sneaked another look into the blistering light, and made out two LAAT/i's touching down into the sand. I realized that we were done. After six days of fighting on that damn hill, we had been beat up in the air where we had no control. My right hand began reaching toward my boot.

Gear lifted his rifle and fired at the nearest transport and its crew as they jumped out into the heat. He managed to blast one in the helmet before three other stormtroopers ran up and loaded a dozen shots into his broken body.

A shadow came over me, and I realized that someone's feet were inches from my head.

"I found it sir! This one's got it!"

I strained to keep my eyes open, and managed to see the trooper crouch and reach across my body for my left hand. With what little adrenaline I had left, I clenched the hilt of my knife and yanked my arm back from my boot and over my body, catching the shoulder plate of the man's armor. It didn't penetrate, but surprised the man more than anything. As he stumbled backward I reached over and plunged the knife into my left hand, straight through the data card. It sizzled for a few seconds before giving out a sharp pop and a wisp of smoke. I tossed the useless device to my left.

I looked up into the sky to find the two suns again, still glaring at me viciously. I was about to seal my eyelids tightly shut once more when a shadow blocked out the sun, a figure holding a rifle. It was over, and I knew it. I had fought my fight, had finished being one of the millions to fight for freedom in the galaxy. There was nothing I could do but put on a smug look of satisfaction, and wait.


End file.
